It was about three in the morning at Mexican Joe's. A dingy lantern hanging from the unused electric chandelier cast an eerie light against the cobwebbed walls. Everything was quiet except for the snores of Joe who lay beneath the counter. I was eating hot tamales while i waited for my relief on the Mexican quarter beat.
The Car in the Mexican Quarter
Jim Thompson
1931
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DeviantArt
Niagara
Humanity's deepest desires are to escape our ultimate fate, find our dreams and realize our greatest hopes. However, as the title suggests film noir does not seek to comfort it's audience and suggest that dreams can come true. In this dark and non-linear world, cynicism, alienation and despair are dominant. People do good things for the wrong reasons and vice versa. This is a world of insecurity and the people who live in it are not straightforward or recognizable in terms of classic narrative structures. They are broken, twisted and damaged - yet we travel with them on their doomed journeys. Their own hopes are not dissimilar to ours - security, stability, freedom and even love. But they seek it in far different ways - through graft, betrayal, crime and murder.
Paul Batters
Fatalism and Futility in Film Noir
Silverscreenclassicsblog
2018
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Odds Against Tomorrow
1959
We see Baker walking slowly on the balcony of his hotel room, warming up on his trumpet, then packing it up and checking out how he looks before he goes to the gig. We cut to old TV footage of a young Baker in San Remo in 1956 and then back to him, now in close-up. The sense of how lonely life can be on the road is palpable.
The Enduring Enigma of Chet Baker
Steve Provizer
The Arts Fuse
2025
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unkown
Chet Baker
https://artsfuse.org/320300/jazz-commentary-the-enduring-enigma-of-chet-baker/
